Why do wide receivers get into so much trouble?

I don't have the stats to back it up, admittedly, but why does it seem that when a football player gets into trouble with the law or is involved in a controversy, three times out of five it is a wide receiver when they only make up one tenth of football players?
Is it something about the position that requires an arrogance or predilection for risky behavior or is it an acquired trait?

 

Divas.

 

I'd be curious who gets in trouble more often, wide receivers or defensive backs.

 

For both WRs and DBs, the most important intangible is confidence. A successful DB has to look across the line, see Jerry Fucking Rice in his prime and think to himself, "I can shut that guy down" despite all evidence to indicate that he is going to be beaten like a rented mule all day. And a WR needs to see Deion Fucking Sanders in his prime lined up across from him and think "Dude can't stop me" despite all evidence to indicate he is about to be covered with a blanket.

Because they largely play in isolation, they never have to realize that they are playing a team game. Their sole focus is on beating the coverage, so they don't give a second thought to the fact that the tackle kept the pass rusher away from the quarterback long enough for the QB to make the throw. Or they don't take the time to realize that the quarterback made that pass because the DE beat the tackle. So you have a player with a confidence that is unhealthy in almost any other aspect of life, makes millions of dollars, is a highly recognizable face and is still young and immature. And we wonder why they get in trouble?

 

I imagine there's somewhat of an inferiority complex at work. Imagine having an ego the size of Pennsylvania but at the same time you're so dependent on a quarterback to get the ball to you. And, unless you pull some Lyn Swann maneuver out of your ass, the quarterback probably gets the majority of the credit for making the correct read and the proper throw. And if the quarterback can't get the ball to you, you're completely irrelevant. Talk about a blow to the ego.

That reminds me of watching the Florida State/Tenn. bowl championship about a decade back where Peter Warrick, FSU's biggest offensive threat, became completely useless when the quarterback went down. Aside from a couple of reverses, there wasn't shit he could do.

 

It's funny, I was thinking about this the other day.
DBs/WRs seem to most often get in trouble when it has to do with crimes of ego -- i.e. packing heat, verbal disputes, etc.
LBs/RBs -- the guys who hit and get his the most -- seem to get into trouble in crimes of aggression, i.e. assault, battery, etc.

It makes sense: DBs/WRs have to think they're untouchable. RBs/LBs have to think they're the toughest sonuva bitch around.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Running backs touch the ball 20 times a game, the QB touches it every play. They're going to get many of the accolades for a team's performance (and much of the blame).

A WR gets the football what, six times a game? Ten on a really good day? It's the same reason the special teams gunner gets up and jumps around like a maniac when he makes a tackle on a punt, because that's the only time all day people are going to know he's on the field.

They spend so much time looking for attention and ego boosts on the field, it probably carries over to their private lives as well.

As for DBs, they're most often mentioned when they get burned, so when they get a chance to gratify their ego, they take it, whether it's by high-stepping to the end zone after a pick (a la Deion) or making it rain in a strip club and then trying to take the money back (a la Pacman).

 

In one of those football preview magazines a few years ago there was an article on football player personalities. It was looking at the likes of then Chad Johnson and Randy Moss and Terrell Owens and all the shit they pull, but turned the pages back a few decades and brought up a few receivers of the past and basically said it was nothing new, just in today's age with the media you are going to hear about it over and over again.

I guess there were some studies that went into this back in the 70s if I remember correctly and they could pretty much determine the position the player played by his hand writting. It worked back to psychological testing and so on. Obviously there is the odd exception, but it was crazy how accurate it was, and then it listed the personalties per position. The two I remember for sure was that WRs were divas -- no shocker there -- and RBs were loners -- which given the recent history of backs doesn't strike me as odd like Edge in Arizona requesting a trade in the midst of the Cards best season in a generation, or even Benson's entire time in Chicago as the first two examples that pop to mind; it has to do with a sense of a shorter career than any other player, the pounding they take and all of the one-on-one battles they go through in a game, blocking or not.

Very intersting read, actually. Wish I could remember which publication it was in, it was two or three summers ago.

 

Attention seeking whores, just like power forwards.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, Pope Dirk Fucking Benedict

 

Interesting that no one is mentioning the elephant in the room...

 

Which is?